e-commerce

A cost-based comparative analysis of different last-mile strategies for e-commerce delivery

Research Product Type
Associated Publication
To aid a fuller understanding of the costs and benefits of these distribution strategies in diverse delivery environments, this work develops a multi-echelon last-mile distribution model using Continuous Approximation (CA) techniques. The model results suggest that traditional last-mile delivery with diesel trucks is a good fit for e-retailers delivering in dense environments with lenient temporal constraints (parcel service), a strategy that allows for demand consolidation and thus low-cost low-emission distribution.

Assessing Sustainability of E-Commerce Goods Distribution

Research Product Type
Dissertation / Thesis
As e-retailers compete with increasingly consumer-focused service, urban freight witnesses a significant increase in associated distribution costs and negative externalities including greenhouse gas emissions advancing global climate change, as well as criteria pollutant emissions worsening local air quality and thus affecting those living close to logistics clusters. Thus, the author considers the potential of e-commerce to render economically viable, environmentally efficient, and socially equitable urban goods flow, which is pertinent to understand the opportunities and challenges associated with urban freight in light of the increasingly consumer-focused e-commerce distribution.

Coping with the Rise of E-commerce Generated Home Deliveries through Innovative Last-mile Technologies and Strategies

Research Product Type
Research Report
This study investigates the opportunities and challenges associated with alternate last-mile distribution strategies for an e-retailer offering expedited service with rush delivery within strict timeframes. The authors formulated a last-mile network design (LMND) problem as a dynamic-stochastic two-echelon capacitated location routing problem with time-windows (DS-2E-C-LRP-TW) addressed with an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) metaheuristic.